Y! Sports Biz: In the hunt or on a wild goose chase?

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Y! Sports Biz: In the hunt or on a wild goose chase?

Mon, Oct 19, 2026 ·

8 min read

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👋 Welcome back!Let's get down to biz.

In today's edition:Playoff expansion puts more teams in the hunt, the reason the Hoosiers' streak ended, burning off-court NBA questions, Rubenstein doesn't deny the undeniable, Ohtani's $2.5 million ensemble, and more.

Time to show you the money...

📈In the hunt or chasing ghosts?

The proposed CFP expansion to 24 teams has a lower approval rating than the Cracker Barrel rebrand. However, it follows a well-worn path of growing postseasons across sports.

In the hunt:The NFL, NBA, and MLB have all expanded postseason access since 2020, chasing revenue from extra games and heightened late-season engagement. Each commissioner has celebrated the latter point, which creates widespread upside.

Roger Goodell ( 2014 ):"We think we can make the matchups more competitive towards the end of the season. There'll be more excitement, more memorable moments for our fans."
Adam Silver ( 2022 ):"What we're seeing is a far greater impact essentially on the last month of the season where teams are either jockeying to get into the Play-In Tournament itself or jockeying to get out of [it]."
Rob Manfred ( 2025 ):"We've kind of found the sweet spot between enough teams that September was really exciting for us, right through the last weekend. The incentives that are embedded in the system kept everybody playing hard right through the end."

Mixed results:Though hope and access have been key selling points for expansion, that hope might be foolhardy, as expanded access has offered little credible hope of a title.

NFL:No. 7 seeds have played 13 playoff games since the postseason expanded in 2020. They've won just one of them.
NBA:A No. 10 seed has never advanced beyond the play-in round. No. 9 seeds have occasionally reached a playoff series, but they've never won one.
MLB:The MLB's expansion has proven more worthwhile. No. 6 seeds, added in 2022, have reached the World Series twice, though they haven't won it all.

On campus:CFP critics argue that expansion misplaces hope with pretenders at the expense of diluting an already dramatic regular season among the game's contenders. They fear the access will accommodate middling power-conference schools, just as the NCAA's newly expanded 76-team basketball tournament might.

Your take:Will the expanded CFP help or hurt the regular season's value? 87% of our readers think it will be bad for business.

Bottom line:Increased access sounds great in theory — and may even prove so in practice. But if it offers no plausible path to winning it all, is the associated hope sustainable? Or can a mere playoff appearance sustain excitement in an increasingly ring-obsessed culture? At the very least, it'll spare a school or two from firing coaches and triggering hefty buyouts.

📸 Bank Shots

🏀 San Francisco, California —The Valkyries opened the WNBA Finals with a win over the Dream in front of a sold-out crowd at the Chase Center, where the get-in price finished above $200. For comparison, no Finals opener in the previous four years had cleared even $70.

🏈 London, England —The Jaguars played their second consecutive "home" game in London on Sunday, falling 34-31 to the Texans at Wembley Stadium. Unlike last week's NFL-run game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Jags own and operate their games at Wembley, handling ticketing, concessions, vendors, staffing, and more.

🏈 Bloomington, Indiana —Merchants Bank was announced as Indiana's new patch partner last week, and the logo debuted on Saturday in a loss to Ohio State. Some advanced analytics: Over their last 23 games, the Hoosiers are 22-0 without a patch and 0-1 with one. Tough start!

🏀 Starting 5: Hard questions off the hardwood

The NBA season tips off tomorrow night with a tripleheader featuring six of the league's most intriguing teams. But beyond the hardwood, several topics will shape the off-court NBA discourse in the months ahead.

Starting Five:These are the burning business questions worth following alongside the on-court action.

Will the second-apron discourse persist through the season?There are zero teams projected to be above the second apron this season. Dissatisfaction with payroll right-sizing could persist, but parity could also deliver a ninth different champion in nine years.
Which markets will welcome new teams?The Las Vegas expansion process is nearing its end, but Seattle is reportedly no longer a slam dunk , with Mexico City a potential alternative. Plus: Could Tom Dundon move the Blazers , and what will NBA Europe ultimately look like?
What's the future of local broadcasts?DAZN will stream local games for 10 teams this season, with exclusivity for five.* Could the platform's performance make it the dark horse for the NBA's centralized local hub plans? YouTube looms as a frontrunner .
Will gambling scandals blemish another season?The NBA and prominent sportsbooks banned several prop bets last week (mostly player unders), and legal cases from the scandals that shook the league are ongoing. Another revelation would be devastating.
Will more teams sell?Perhaps no league has more momentum in valuations than the NBA after this summer's shock $12.5 billion Lakers sale. The eye-popping prices could tempt more owners to cash in.

Bonus question:How many miles will the Fanatics chopper log in service of LeBron? Then again, it's " just another way of transportation ," nothing to see here.

*Starting this season, DAZN is the exclusive local home of the Cavaliers, Grizzlies, Pacers, Spurs, and Timberwolves.

⚡Lightning Round

💰 CFP financial details emerge:The new CFP deal with ESPN will reportedly deliver an additional $345 million in media rights revenue, offset by the surrender of approximately $140 million to ESPN and $50 million to Fox for canceled conference championships.

🐬 Ross sells minority stake:Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has reportedly sold 2.1% of the team and affiliated businesses (Hard Rock Stadium, F1 Miami Grand Prix, Miami Open) to Chilean billionaire Jean Eric Salata at a valuation slightly above $12.5 billion, per SBJ.

🏈 NFL Paris game to go ahead:The NFL will put another pin on the map on Sunday, as its Paris game is expected to take place as scheduled , despite civil unrest and violent protests in France.

See what else is trending on the Yahoo Sports Business Hub .

🎙️ Rubenstein says the quiet part out loud

Owners rarely discuss the financial upside of owning teams, and for good reason. It's an open invitation for everyone from players to fans to ask for more.

Didn't get the memo:Orioles owner David Rubenstein exercised no such caution last week at the Economic Club of Washington, DC. The Carlyle co-founder, who knows a thing or two about successful investments, admitted sports' financial appeal raised his eyebrows.

"A lot of my friends were buying teams, and I realized they're making money. They're making more money than I'm making in private equity. I thought I should look at it as a financial thing, but ultimately, I bought the Orioles for a philanthropic purpose."

Timing's everything:Rubenstein's comments come as MLB owners fight to install a salary cap that would give them cost certainty for their biggest expense. Maybe he meant capital appreciation, not annual cash flow, but you can still viscerally feel 29 other owners cringing. The episode would make a great " Wanna get away? " commercial, but something tells us Rubenstein doesn't fly Southwest.*

*Respect if he does, though. By the way, Rubenstein has a new book out, called "Inside the Owner's Box." It seems he's not shy about sharing his perspective. I'll be reading. Y! Sports Biz book club?!

🏟️ Over/Under: Rocky celebrations on Rocky Top

As fun as the postgame scenes at Neyland Stadium look, they proved quite expensive for Tennessee. The SEC fined the Vols for the field-storming.

Extra salt in the wound:The fine is paid to their opponent, in this case, Alabama.

Over/Under:Were the Vols fined over or under $300,000?

Answer at the bottom.

🇯🇵 What's that in yen?

Shohei Ohtani hit .192 this postseason, failing to ignite as the Dodgers' three-peat hopes imploded. Deep-pocketed collectors, however, are unfazed by the Japanese icon's struggles.

Happy homecoming:Ohtani's jersey from the first official MLB game in Tokyo, held in March 2025, sold for $2,055,700 at The Realest this weekend (~¥324 million). Between Ohtani's return home, his kanji signature, the beginning of another MVP season, and the first-ever appearance of a Gold MLB Logoman patch, the jersey ranks highly in significance.

Complete the ensemble:Ohtani's cleats from the same game sold earlier this year for $440,055. That's nearly $2.5 million in apparel from one outing.

Up next:MLB and the countless collectors heavily exposed to Ohtani need him to get healthy (and maybe even pitch again?) next season, whenever that might be.

⏰ Draft your squad!

When the NBA tips off tomorrow night, so does Yahoo Fantasy Basketball. The clock is ticking to draft your squad . Play in a private league with friends or join a public league to compete against other fans all season long.

Want to try something different?" High Score " is our streamlined game format that features six weekly starters, with only their highest-scoring game each week counting toward your total.

Sign up now.

Over/Under answer:Over. The SEC issues $500,000 fines for field-storming.

And, oh, by the way, this is the third time since 2020 the Vols have been fined for the offense… all after beating the Tide. They were docked $100,000 apiece in 2022 and 2024. With the most recent penalty, they're up to $700,000.

Thanks for reading! Wanna talk shop? Follow me on X and Linkedin , or drop me a line: dylan.dittrich@yahooinc.com .

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